(un)certain things
by authorisasauthordoes
Summary: AKA, the one where Lucas face-grabs Riley too.


Once the dust settles from the painful transition into high school, Riley likes to tell herself she's got it all figured out. Sure, the classes are a little more difficult and she has to try a little harder to maintain her permanent record, both academically and personally. And yes, the upperclassmen are bigger and the hallways feel endless. She's fairly certain if she's not careful she's going to lose one of her friends to the sea of students and never see them again, but all things considered she thinks she's got it under control.

Her friends already drifted away from her once, but they came back. There's something between the six of them that keeps them together—a weird sense of gravity, tethering them and keeping them in each other's orbits. Gravity, destiny, whatever it is, she believes in it as much as she believes in anything else.

They're her people, and they're not going anywhere.

That said, there's still one thing that prevents her from feeling settled. A piece of unfinished business that no one will wrap up.

In a lot of ways, Riley feels like she knows how this situation is going to end. Maybe it's the optimist in her, but when she and Lucas share a smile in class or crack each other up in the lunchroom she's almost certain she knows how he feels.

Maya has always been an unknown in the triangle situation—unpredictable and spontaneous and prone to follow the winds of change as her nature so often allows. And there were many moments in the last few months of middle school where Riley didn't know how either of them felt, especially watching the two of them stand on the rooftop together on New Year's Eve before Farkle blew everything sky high. But since graduation, in some capacity it seems as though things are clearing up. When Lucas looked at her and claimed they were no good at being friends, she got this glimmer of insight into how he was feeling, and that tacit understanding between them has only intensified the longer this stagnant dynamic between the three of them has continued.

Nowadays, when she turns around in class and catches him staring at her, it only makes the point even clearer.

Still, there are little things nagging at her in the back of her mind any time she allows herself to believe that things will work out for the best. She can't stop thinking about how heartbroken Maya would be if anything happened between them, even if Maya seems less than interested in the drama as of late. She can't stop thinking about how if Lucas had feelings for her he would've made it clear by now, but she tries to remind herself that he's struggling with the same reservations she is over their fiery friend.

Mostly, she can't stop thinking about this supposedly dreamy campfire scene, with starlight and deep conversation and an almost kiss that was either so uncomfortable or so intense neither person involved wants to ever talk about it again. All the things that go unsaid about it and all the things she doesn't know.

She forces herself not to think about it. For all her optimism, that's the kind of stuff that can get her down in the dumps lightning quick.

Although she agrees wholeheartedly and wants to keep trusting he believes it too, Riley always makes sure to emphasize that Lucas pointed that they're no good at being _just_ friends, _just_ being the key word. She thinks they make excellent friends—they always have—but it's the limitation of staying constrained to those strictly platonic labels that they find difficult. There's always been a flicker of something else under the surface, and trying to push it aside and pretend it doesn't exist is where they find themselves struggling to function normally.

In trying to protect Maya's feelings, both of them are really make fools of themselves in a desperate attempt to remain casual. Riley would find it funny if it weren't so embarrassing.

It's the awkward routine they're balancing as they're seated on the floor in front of the bay window one fall afternoon, working on a project for her father's class. She's a little bit surprised her father paired them together at all considering his track record, but since they're just friends and everything she supposes it must be acceptable. If her father is willing to let them loose together, they're either more convincing than she thought or even he has grown weary of the triangle drama and just wants something to happen so they can all move on.

For the most part, the two of them make great project partners. Neither of them are slackers, and both are determined to pull their own weight and contribute evenly to the assignment. They're good communicators, and when they apply this trait of theirs to school work it's even more apparent. Unlike some of her other friends who have strong opinions and little room for flexibility, Lucas is more than willing to listen to her viewpoint and adjust their plan of action accordingly. It's something she really admires about him—that when she expresses an opinion or speaks her mind, it feels as though he's actually listening.

The issue comes when she lifts her head from the poster board to make eye contact with him and they look at each other for a little longer than usual, until one of them remembers they're not supposed to look at each other like that and averts their eyes. Or when they both reach for the scissors at the same time and brush hands, and there's a lingering moment of hesitation where they allow their fingers to touch before one of them pulls away on the basis of _just_ friendship.

Every time, they exchange an awkward smile and go silent for a couple minutes. Mentally shaking off the embarrassment and ruminating over how wonderful it is to be _just_ friends. Just good, casual friends. Just platonic pals being friendly.

Riley has to remind herself how much she likes the concept of friendship in theory. It's only in this particular case that it hurts like hell.

"You know," Lucas says, breaking the silence after one of these moments. He rearranges some of the photos on the board, nitpicking at the alignment until they're perfectly straight. "I think this is going to be the best assignment your dad has ever seen in his classroom. He should really pair us together more often if he wants quality work."

The comment is enough to assuage the tension, earning a laugh from her. "I can't wait to see what Maya and Zay bring in. I'm not completely convinced they're not going to just show up with a blank poster board and call it a day."

"Well, better they take each other down than one of us. Although I have faith in Zay."

"Paired with Maya? He better have a pretty powerful bargaining chip to get her to turn in something even somewhat as impressive as this masterpiece." Riley gestures to their project affectionately, patting the poster board proudly. "But I also think my dad was sick of me and Maya always doing projects together. So you would've been stuck with one of us either way."

There's a pause. Lucas licks his lips, staring down at the poster before lifting his eyes to meet hers. "Glad it worked out the way it did."

It's another one of those instances where they're saying a lot without actually saying anything about the situation at all. He's saying one thing, but she knows what meaning he's trying to get across just by the look in his eyes and the sincerity of his words. It's these genuine, seemingly offhand moments that she's been clinging to for months now.

 _We're no good at it. I feel like I really get Jexica. I'd recognize you anywhere._

Despite how quickly her heart flutters and how warm her cheeks get, guilt manages to creep into her mind and leave her feeling chilly instead. Even without Maya here to insist on evening up, Riley's become so used to thinking of her feelings that accepting such a compliment from Lucas seems like some sort of transgression on both their parts. Like they're doing something criminal.

She drops his gaze and focuses on the poster instead, fidgeting with the pictures he spent all that time painstakingly laying out so neatly. "You shouldn't say that."

"What? I can't comment on the outcome of project partners anymore? Is that suddenly not okay?"

"No," Riley murmurs, trying to figure out how to articulate what exactly is wrong with the phrase. Objectively, nothing. But it feels like more.

"Am I supposed to even that up too?" he says tiredly, stretching out his legs and leaning back against the base of the bay window, crossing his arms. "What do you want me to say? I'm really glad we got partnered up for this history project, Riley, but I hope Maya and I get paired up for that frog dissection in biology. Is that better?"

She lifts her head to glare at him. "You know what I mean. That's not what you're saying. It means something else."

"Does it?" His expression is challenging, but the softness in his eyes assures her that he's on the same page as her. They've always been good at reading each other. "You think it does?"

Riley stares at him for a long moment, uncertain as to what to say. All the things that come to mind seem to lead down roads that she's not sure they could come back from, so it's safer to continue to play the _just_ friends game and distract herself with the assignment.

"We need glue," she finally says, climbing to her feet and heading to her desk. "Can't put this together without glue."

She takes her time searching the drawer for the glue stick, trying to ignore the exhausted sigh from the other end of the room as Lucas moves forward to fix the photos she inadvertently messed up. It takes more and more effort on both of their parts to continue to pretend that natural spark between them isn't there, and in that current moment it takes all of her willpower not to drop the project entirely and comfort him—to talk it out and get both of their feelings out there and at least come out of the situation feeling like something is resolved even if there's still the whole angle of her best friend to take into consideration.

But Riley manages to pull it together, sliding the drawer closed and walking back over to him. She stands over him and holds out the glue stick for him to take.

He locks eyes with her as he takes it from her fingers, dropping his gaze back down to the board as he kneels in front of it. Just as she figures the crisis has been averted for another day, Lucas mutters under his breath.

"I'm tired of saying things I don't mean."

Riley closes her eyes, biting her lip as she turns away from him and walks a couple of steps away. A million and one things run through her head—doubts, questions, sympathies—but all she can think about vividly is the look on her best friend's face when Lucas fell off the bull. Her face when she demands he even them up. Her face when she left them alone at that stupid campfire and what her expression would be if she heard them talking about the situation without her.

She pushes some hair behind her ear, staying away from him to avoid eye contact. "We can't talk about this."

"Why not?"

"This is something between the three of us. There are only two of us here. It's not fair of us to discuss it if Maya's not here to defend herself or offer her own opinion."

Lucas climbs to his feet, stepping around the poster board to avoid ruining it. "I don't see how that should be a rule, considering it sort of feels like only two people are usually involved in the decision-making anyway."

Riley blinks, making a face as she swivels around to face him. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," he says after a pause, clearing his throat and putting his hands in his pockets. He opens his mouth and closes it again, obviously regretting the snide comment. "Nothing."

"No," she says insistently, tilting her head at him. "What are you talking about? Tell me."

"I thought we couldn't talk about this."

"Lucas."

He huffs, crossing his arms again and shuffling uncomfortably. "I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of not knowing what's going on and never being heard and having to talk to you in code like we're operatives in the cold war or something. I know why things are the way they are, but… I don't know."

"They're this way for a reason," she says quietly, almost as if she's trying to convince them both. "The most important thing is that nobody gets hurt."

"I know," he agrees. He hesitates, tilting his head nervously at the ground and pressing his lips into a thin line. "I'm just tired of knowing."

Riley contemplates shutting down the conversation before it even really starts. They're toeing the line dangerously, teetering on the edge of saying the things they actually want to say rather than sort of dancing around the topic, and she has no idea what's going to happen if they cross it.

But every complaint he has just makes her more certain in her belief that she knows how he feels. When he claims he's tired of knowing, it's not about knowing they're better off just friends.

She understands what he's trying to say to her without outright saying it, but she can't accept it. The longer she stands there ruminating on it, the more she realizes a lot of her hesitation is stemming from another place. Not from the defense of her best friend and the maintenance of their dynamic and keeping the peace, but from evening up and _blonde beauty_ and mysterious campfires that leave her in the dark.

Doubt.

"How do you know?"

Despite their unique talent in communication, it takes Lucas a couple of moments to catch up to her train of thought. He squints at her. "Huh?"

"How can you be so sure?" Riley swallows, clasping her hands together and standing a little straighter. "You did say you had feelings for both of us."

"I said I had _different_ feelings for both of you. And that's true. I do."

"Okay, but you stood together at New Years," she points out, twiddling her fingers together. Although she feels horrible for being so insecure and figures she should quit while she's ahead, once the words come tumbling out of her she can't seem to stop them. "You got all fired up for her when art class was going to get cancelled."

Lucas looks a little wounded at the insinuation of her words. "I would've done that for any of you. She's my friend, and I want her to do what she loves. That has nothing to do with—,"

"And I mean, you two certainly do make a pretty couple. Our classmates definitely think so." Lucas opens his mouth to argue but she holds up her hands, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath in between rambles. "And I'm not trying to say you're at fault here or anything like that, you just have to understand that I don't see how could you be sure. Maya is pretty, and talented, and funny. It would make perfect sense for you to have feelings for her. In whatever capacity that may be."

To his credit, Lucas doesn't seem concerned with discussing how wonderful her best friend is. "Is any of that supposed to matter? Are you really trying to tell me that I don't know how I feel?"

"No, I'm not, I'm just—,"

"Because it's not as if that would be particularly out of line considering how the rest of this situation has panned out," he says bitterly, shrugging and kicking lightly at his backpack on the floor in front of him. "Like I said, there are two people collaborating to make decisions about this triangle, and I'm definitely not one of them."

Riley drops her jaw slightly, trying to wrap her brain around how quickly this conversation is devolving. She should've just made them focus back on the project. "I'm not saying you don't know your own feelings—,"

"You don't have to, this whole situation speaks enough for you."

"Well, what do you expect?" Riley snaps, feeling a hysterical sort of panic tingle through her chest. She waves her arms, gesturing broadly around the room as if it represents the situation at hand. "I don't know how anyone actually feels! I have no idea what's going on with Maya, and since you two almost kissed—,"

"Oh my God," Lucas groans, covering his face with his hands before running his fingers through his hair stressfully. "We didn't kiss. It wasn't like that. It's not because I felt… I don't know why all that went down the way it did. I just—,"

"Look, Lucas, it's okay." Riley steels her resolve, managing a tight smile and willing herself not to start doing something stupid like crying. "If you wanted to, I mean, if you felt something for her, then that's completely fine. It is."

"Riley," he says, frustration evident in his tone. He clasps his hands together, wringing them anxiously. "Would you please listen to me?"

"Sometimes we feel things for people and we don't understand why it happens. But I don't see how you could grab her face and pull her towards you as if you were going to kiss her if you didn't want to kiss her. I'm not saying you have to explain yourself, I'm just saying—,"

"I didn't want to kiss her!" he snaps. His voice cracks when he speaks again, trying to talk over Riley's rambling. She just can't find it in herself to stop. "Why will no one listen to me? I don't know what happened, I wasn't going to kiss her, I know how I feel—,"

She should never have let this conversation happen.

"It's fine. Really, it's fine. A kiss is perfectly normal if you're having those kind of feelings. Confusion or not, you're allowed those feelings for her—,"

"For one second I just want to someone to actually… I know my feelings, Riley." She barrels on, trying to rationalize in lieu of falling apart. Lucas steps towards her, trying to get her to look at him. "Will you stop talking about that? It wasn't a kiss!"

"It wouldn't matter if it was! You're allowed those feelings. I just don't see how you could be so sure now if you had those feelings then—,"

"Riley, stop and listen to me!"

"Your feelings are your feelings. You know them better than anyone. You don't have to cover them up for me to spare my feelings, okay? If you were going to kiss Maya, then you were going to kiss Maya, and that's all there is to—,"

In an instant, Lucas reaches forward and takes her face in his hands, pulling her towards him. She immediately goes silent, holding her breath and closing her eyes. Waiting for something she's uncertain is really coming and expecting everything to fall apart any second.

The world doesn't implode. Nothing else happens. After a shaky breath, Riley opens her eyes.

Lucas is frozen, hands still gentle on her face. Despite the sudden impulsive nature of the initial grab he's paralyzed with uncertainty, gaze hovering on her lips to avoid looking her in the eyes. She can feel his breath on her cheeks.

All the sudden, she's been transported to a starry night in Texas, standing in Maya's shoes. It's the same moment, only rather than a smoldering campfire at her feet there's an unfinished history project and uncapped glue stick drying out on the carpet.

Riley swallows hard, forcing herself to speak. "What are you doing?"

"Uh," he breathes, clearing his throat when he hears the timidity of his own voice. "I don't know."

She's weirdly preoccupied with how nice his eyelashes are. It's been a long, long time since she was close enough to admire them. She glances at his lips, startled by how near they are. If she moved forward even an inch she could touch them. "Why?"

"I just… I don't know," he repeats. He blinks, eyes still trained on her mouth and hands still cupping her face. He doesn't seem to be making any sort of effort to move away. "I wanted you to stop."

Suddenly, the reality of Maya and Lucas's mysterious moment at the faraway campfire doesn't seem all that significant. If the situation was anything like this, it's more than likely he was acting out of frustration than passion like she always imagined. She knows he's prone to be impulsive in high intensity situations—Zay's confirmed that notion numerous times with stories of his behavior in Texas.

The difference is that Riley feels a lot more intrigue from the way they're standing now—the tenderness in the way he's holding her face, the soft, nervous gleam in his eyes, the fact that they've been standing here for at least a minute now not saying anything but not exactly diving away from one another either.

"This is just your go-to method to get people to stop talking?" she asks, the hint of a joke in her voice. She tries not to let his answer have too strong an effect on her, even though it has the potential to alleviate one of the greatest insecurities that has haunted her since eighth grade.

He licks his lips, hesitating to refocus on the conversation. He still hasn't met her eyes. "Yeah, I guess."

"It's not very orthodox," she murmurs. Speaking any louder feels inconsiderate with their faces so close together. "But it's… effective, I suppose."

"I guess." Lucas takes one last look at her lips before lifting his gaze to meets hers, taking a deep breath. There's a glimmer of something in his expression, and for a wild moment Riley gets the feeling that she's about to have her second kiss.

Lucas drops his hands from her face and backs away, swallowing hard as he turns away from her.

Reeling from the possibility of the previous moment, Riley takes a second to catch her breath. She folds her hands together, examining him curiously as he paces with his hand on his hip, chewing on his thumbnail. "Is that what you did with Maya?"

"Yeah," he says distantly, staring at the wall rather than her.

She pauses. "Just like that?"

"Not exactly. We backed off faster." He glances over his shoulder to look at her, biting his lip anxiously. "It was the same. But it was different."

Riley can't help the light smile that ghosts over her lips at the nonsensical nature of his words. "The same, but different?"

"This was different."

He attempts to maintain eye contact until he loses his resolve and breaks away, walking over to the bay window and collapsing on the floor in front of it. He leans back against the seat and twiddles his thumbs nervously, picking at his fingers.

It's almost as if the whole conversation never happened—she's about to hand him the glue stick and he's going to arrange the pictures the way they're supposed to be and they'll finish their project. But everything feels changed, understanding painting Riley's perspective of the scenario in which they're trapped in a completely new light.

She pads over to the bay window and sits down on it, crossing her legs and watching him from behind as he picks at a hangnail on his thumb.

"Why didn't you kiss Maya?"

He makes an irritated face, evidently more emotionally sensitive with everything that just happened. "I didn't want to."

Riley nods, staring down at her hands in her lap. She debates with herself for a few seconds over whether or not to ask the question on the tip of her tongue. Ultimately, her curiosity wins out, but her tone is soft with uncertainty. "Why didn't you kiss me?"

"I didn't want…" he starts, hesitating as he figures out exactly what he wants to say. Riley hates the panic in her chest at the possibility of him finishing the phrase the same way he finished his last statement.

His feelings are his feelings, and she's realizing that maybe he's right—he deserves to be allowed to say them more for the rest of them to hear. She's been so focused on preserving Maya's feelings at the expense of her own, she didn't even realize she was making him do the same thing.

She makes a promise to herself to make sure his feelings are heard from now on. To always make sure he knows his feelings are valid and important and worth hearing. She doesn't ever want him to think otherwise again.

He gulps, keeping his eyes focused on his fingers as he tears at the hangnail nervously. "I didn't want it to happen like this."

Riley feels her heart flutter again, absorbing the meaning of his words. If she learns nothing else from this afternoon, at least she can walk away with the truth that Lucas Friar has thought about what their second kiss would be like. "Like what?"

"With us fighting."

"We're not fighting," she argues. When he shoots her a disdainful glare she can't help but smile, shrugging her shoulders. "We were debating. Discussing. Not fighting."

He tries to maintain the look of disdain but cracks, smiling in spite of himself and dipping his head to look away from her. He swallows, furrowing his brow and reconstructing his stern expression.

"Still. If I was going to kiss you…" he says the statement gently, like even the thought is something delicate that he doesn't want to mess up. "I'd want it to be something good. Not while we're fighting and not while it's confusing. I mean, maybe it would be confusing, but it would be in a good way. Like I have no idea what I'm doing, but it doesn't matter because it's you and that's good enough."

His voice fades as he finishes the sentence, shyness overpowering sentiment.

But she hears him. No codebreaking involved. Her belief in their ability to understand one another is stronger than ever.

For one of the first times since they came back from Texas, she feels like she's actually hearing him.


End file.
